Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, shoppers are still making last minute purchases ahead of the holidays. Unfortunately though, the holiday season is also one of the busiest times of the year for scammers.
As reported by Lance Ulanoff at TechRadar (opens in new tab) (who dodged this particular scam himself), scammers are using text messages in an attempt to steal the credentials of Amazon shoppers.
These text messages claim that an expensive product was ordered from a recipient’s account though the scammers also include a phone number that they can call in case they think there was a mistake. This creates a sense of urgency as shoppers don’t want to be charged for an expensive product they didn’t buy at a time when money is already tight.
While this scam first appeared back in March of this year according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, it makes sense that scammers would want to revive it during the holiday shopping season and they could do so again during other big shopping days like Prime Day. Although it’s currently being distributed by SMS, it could also be sent over email. However, email security filters might detect that it’s spam before it even reaches the inboxes of potential victims.
Amazon Secure Server
In Lance’s case, the scammers claimed he ordered a $649 XGIMI Elfin Mini Projector and since he knew it was a scam due to spelling and grammatical errors in the text message, he decided to play…
